Chief Learning Officer - August 2007 - (Page 44)

human capital in practice: Team Architecture: Seven Steps Roger R. Pearman performing learning team works through various stages, which include thrust, trust, teaming skills, team support and team leadership. To build the kind of team that can achieve the high-end outcomes, an assessment of the necessary competencies and skills is essential. Do the individuals involved have the capabilities to function as a team? Are these potential team members also individual learners? You must make a basic assessment of individuals’ potential to perform in a team environment. Groups usually don’t know how to act as teams, but they know how to act as groups — members begin to position and evaluate the relative value of this activity for their bosses and think about all the e-mails and voicemails waiting for them at their desk. To move the group along, a clear, compelling mission must be articulated, and the importance of the challenge to organizational success is an essential first step. But even after everyone signs on to the mission, there is no promise a team will really develop. The group members must learn to trust one another, or they will not value the talent in the room, nor will they risk sharing new ideas and extend themselves to support team members. Trust comes in many forms: communication, actions, commitments and relationship building. If individuals do not feel their ideas will be treated with regard, they might hold back or merely piggyback on others’ ideas. Then, everyone loses. A training program for all the other topics of team building (e.g., conflict management, decision making, resource management) can be developed, given the level of knowledge that exists in the team. The achievement of these capabilities is tied to the level of trust within the group, however. You know trust is being developed when: • Team members exhibit little or no competition with one another. • Team members seek to motivate and support others. • Team members are deliberate about building cohesion. • Team members defend one another, as well as the team’s actions. • The team seeks to set aside time and resources for improving itself. • Feedback regularly occurs. According to research by Lominger International, team building requires a series of skills and processes. These skills are described in Lominger’s Team Architect solution, which includes the following process order: • Thrust: Relates to goals, commitment and mission, as aligned to business strategy. Is it clear to every member of the team what the goals are? How will the accomplishment of goals be measured? How are the goals tied to business objectives? How will the team’s effort add value for the customer? What are the linkages to short-term and long-term performance expectations for the organization? • Trust: Defined as interpersonal regard, openness, support, understanding of differences and constructive conflict. How have team members been evaluated in terms of their interpersonal savvy and their openness toward teaming? Do team members understand the behaviors associated with being supportive of other team members? Do team members know how to manage conflict for constructive ends? • Talent: The team’s awareness of strengths and weaknesses and a collective understanding of aligning talent with tasks. Do team members really recognize others’ competencies and how all the talents make a stronger unit? Is there a link between what the team can learn and new learning opportunities? Is the support and trust evident enough to leverage the team’s diverse talents? • Teaming skills: Achieved through resource management, team learning, decision making, positive environment and process management. For teams to really work like teams, the members have to know what team decision making is like. Team members have to understand how problem-solving processes work with a group versus management by executive decision. Do team members know different decision styles? Can they flex with differences in problem solving? Do they have the skills to analyze and explore different methods to look at processes? • Task skills: Achieved through focusing on strategies, measuring success, tracking implementation and outcomes and delivering the goods. Although all team members need to know who is accountable for what, are there internal team measurements of progress? Does everyone on the team buy into the metrics of measuring what gets done? August 2007 • Team support: The organization grants the team the authority to make decisions and align reward systems. Do team members feel they have the authority to act on decisions and to affect outcomes? In what ways does it matter which route the team takes? Are rewards clearly aligned to team performance? • Team leadership: Involves appropriate planning, delegating and protecting the team. Leader fit with team context is an important variable. Who is the leader? Is leadership shared? Is the manager and leader the same? What avenues of support are available to the leader? Feedback is a master skill, which is essential to building a learning team — all the other developments of teamlike behavior depend on giving and receiving feedback. Further, every major area of performance depends on feedback, so for a group of individuals to become a team, feedback becomes natural. The best kind of feedback is fluid and specific (e.g., “Your team minutes were so exact, I feel like I can really count on your reports,” or “I am beginning to have doubts about your respect for ideas, given the number of times you interrupted me in today’s meeting.”) I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 44 http://www.clomedia.com

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Chief Learning Officer - August 2007

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